threads / discuss / 18972

Beginner problem with .gitignore

Subject: Beginner problem with .gitignore

## tl;dr

5 messages between Apr 20, 2009 and Apr 21, 2009.

replies: 4people: 2as markdown or json

Kai Schlamp· Apr 20, 2009, 17:57 UTC · lore
Hello.

I have a file called TitleAreaDialog.java in the folder my_path\org.eclipse.jface\src\org\eclipse\jface\dialogs

.git and .gitignore is in the my_path\ folder (using Git Cygwin on Windows).

Now I everything is ignored from org.eclipse.jface, but not that TitleAreaDialog.java

So I specified the following in .gitignore: /org.eclipse.* !TitleAreaDialog.java

I also tried it with: !Title*, !/org.eclipse.jface/src/org/eclipse/jface/dialogs/TitleAreaDialog.java

but the TitleAreaDialog is always ignored as well.
What do I have to do to not ignore this file specifically?

Best regards, Kai

Michael J Gruber· Apr 21, 2009, 08:51 UTC · re: Kai Schlamp · lore

Re: Beginner problem with .gitignore

Kai Schlamp venit, vidit, dixit 20.04.2009 19:57:
Show 19 quoted lines
> Hello.
> 
> I have a file called TitleAreaDialog.java in the folder
> my_path\org.eclipse.jface\src\org\eclipse\jface\dialogs
> 
> .git and .gitignore is in the my_path\ folder (using Git Cygwin on Windows).
> 
> Now I everything is ignored from org.eclipse.jface, but not that 
> TitleAreaDialog.java
> 
> So I specified the following in .gitignore:
> /org.eclipse.*
> !TitleAreaDialog.java
> 
> I also tried it with:
> !Title*, 
> !/org.eclipse.jface/src/org/eclipse/jface/dialogs/TitleAreaDialog.java
> 
> but the TitleAreaDialog is always ignored as well.

By "is ignored", do you mean that git status doesn't show it? git status does not recurse into subdirectories by default unless there is at least one tracked file inside.

> 
> What do I have to do to not ignore this file specifically?
Have you ever added that file?

If you only want to track a few files it's easiest to ignore everything and git add those files. Once added they will be tracked no matter what the ignore patterns say.

Michael
Kai Schlamp· Apr 21, 2009, 09:57 UTC · re: Michael J Gruber · lore

Re: Beginner problem with .gitignore

Michael, thanks for the help. Comments below.
> By "is ignored", do you mean that git status doesn't show it? 
Yes, that is what I meant.
> git status does not recurse into subdirectories by default unless there 
> is at least one tracked file inside.

Ok. I justed tested this a bit. Let's say I have the following directory structure: "/a_dir/b_dir/c_dir"

And have a .gitignore with: /a_dir !/a_dir/b_dir/c_dir/

Now i put a file "a_file" in "c_dir". And add the a_file with "git add /a_dir/b_dir/c_dir/a_file". Yes, a_file is tracked now.

I would have expected (after your information above) that if I create another file "b_file" in "c_dir" and check "git status" that this file is on the untracked file list now. But it doesn't show up. And this makes it quite hard to exclude a whole folder, but only include one of it's subfolders. I use git gui for commits. And I like it that newly added files show up as untracked files. But in this case those files in those subdiretories won't.

Best regards, Kai

Michael J Gruber· Apr 21, 2009, 11:43 UTC · re: Kai Schlamp · lore

Re: Beginner problem with .gitignore

Kai Schlamp venit, vidit, dixit 21.04.2009 11:57:
Show 23 quoted lines
> Michael, thanks for the help. Comments below.
> 
>> By "is ignored", do you mean that git status doesn't show it? 
> 
> Yes, that is what I meant.
> 
>> git status does not recurse into subdirectories by default unless there 
>> is at least one tracked file inside.
> 
> Ok. I justed tested this a bit. Let's say I have the following directory 
> structure: "/a_dir/b_dir/c_dir"
> 
> And have a .gitignore with:
> /a_dir
> !/a_dir/b_dir/c_dir/
> 
> Now i put a file "a_file" in "c_dir".
> And add the a_file with "git add /a_dir/b_dir/c_dir/a_file". Yes, a_file 
> is tracked now.
> 
> I would have expected (after your information above) that if I create 
> another file "b_file" in "c_dir" and check "git status" that this file 
> is on the untracked file list now.
That's for the case when you don't ignore that dir.
Show 5 quoted lines
> But it doesn't show up.
> And this makes it quite hard to exclude a whole folder, but only include 
> one of it's subfolders. I use git gui for commits. And I like it that 
> newly added files show up as untracked files.
> But in this case those files in those subdiretories won't.

The problem is the recursive way in which git applies those patterns. Your patterns above mean that git never recurses into the subdirs.

In the example above, you probably want

/a_dir/b_dir/* !/a_dir/b_dir/c_dir/

Cheers, Michael

P.S.: Please don't cull cc:
Kai Schlamp· Apr 21, 2009, 12:26 UTC · re: Michael J Gruber · lore

Re: Beginner problem with .gitignore

  > The problem is the recursive way in which git applies those patterns.
Show 6 quoted lines
> Your patterns above mean that git never recurses into the subdirs.
> 
> In the example above, you probably want
> 
> /a_dir/b_dir/*
> !/a_dir/b_dir/c_dir/

Ok, I see. But that way would not ignore other directories in a_dir beside b_dir. For that task I have to use the following in .gitignore:

/a_dir/* !/a_dir/b_dir/ /a_dir/b_dir/* !/a_dir/b_dir/c_dir/

This tends to a quite bloated .gitignore when you have a deep directory structure and don't want to ignore all subfolders. I also took a brief look into Mercurial and in my opinion the .hgignore is more straightforward. It seems to use regexp on the complete file path to find out if the files that should be ignored. So the above four lines can be combined to one (and if the directory structure would be deeper, it would also be just a one liner). I know that there for sure is a reason for why git uses it's pattern in .gitignore (probably a performance thing). But it would be nice to have at least an option that it recurses into subdiretories, or uses regexp syntax on the whole file path. Just my two cents.

Best regards, Kai

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